Part of the reason Undead Nightmare works so well is the fact that the writers obviously had their tongues planted firmly in their collective cheeks while crafting the story. Sporting quite a few darkly funny moments, Undead Nightmare is an entertaining romp perfectly complements the fairly serious single-player campaign. Even better, it features a lot of the characters that made the RDR's story so great, including fan-favorites like Landon Ricketts and Nigel West Dickens. The story missions rely a bit too heavily on standard fetch quests for my liking, but plenty of memorable moments keep the proceedings moving along nicely.
The Undead Nightmare campaign took about six hours to complete, but plenty of other activities kept me busy for another six. Quick travel via the campsite is a no-go this time out, so I had to help survivors clear towns and outposts of the zombie menace in order to use their beds, which allowed me to save the game and (you guessed it) fast-travel. Seth, RDR's grave-robber-cum-necrophiliac, plays a larger role in Undead Nightmare, and tasks you with clearing out myriad cemeteries spread across the frontier. These "burn the coffins and kill all of the zombies" missions are fun, although they got tiresome once I'd done a few of them.
As was the case with RDR's original campaign, I found myself ignoring the storyline more often than not, as I found plenty of stuff to distract me from the goal of saving my undead wife and son. Undead Nightmare has some new and improved challenges, including more treasure-hunting and sharpshooting. These are all optional, but completionists (like yours truly) will surely spend precious time and ammo trying to achieve the highest rank in each of them. I particularly loved tracking down the Four Horses of the Apocalypse, each of which granted me special powers (in addition to looking totally awesome). Seriously, if you don't think riding a flaming warhorse through Mexico's stunning rock formations under a starry sky is gaming nirvana, you're no friend of mine. Don't even get me started on the fact that you can hunt and kill a Chupacabra or ride a Unicorn!
While the focus of Undead Nightmare is obviously the zombies, I felt like they were almost inconsequential in some ways. Rockstar could have put vampires or Nazis or roving bands of kittens in the antagonist's slot, and it would still be a blast. More than anything, Undead Nightmare represents a chance to dust off one of the year's best games for a few hours of great single-player action.
